Saturday, February 5, 2011

A Bathysphere is a character with good armor class, hit points, and saving throws; a Dwarf with a few levels under their belt and magic armor is an excellent candidate, especially with their Infravision. If you have a 3rd level Magic-User, throw an Invisibility spell on the Bathysphere.

The function of the Bathysphere is to serve as an "Iron Scout"; whereas conventional dungeoneering scouting wisdom involves the use of a stealthy character, the problem with using a Thief for scouting is that they usually have crap hit points, leather armor, unreliable stealth skills, and usually require some form of light source - the result being that when a thief style scout inevitably encounters monsters or a trap they have a fair chance of ending up dead.

In contrast the Bathysphere is durable, a tough bugger that has a good chance of surviving traps and encounters; and if the monsters or trap are especially lethal, the Bathysphere dies instead of the entire party. Whereas the traditional Thief scout can be a tissue paper pinata, the Bathysphere is a freaking Bomb Disposal Robot.

While dungeoneering, the group that I play in has utilized Dwarven Bathyspheres to great effect...instead of a cowering, fragile Thief scout they're highly effective as bold, confident, durable scouts; whereas sending a Thief on a solo scouting mission can be a callous gamble, the Bathysphere has a damn good chance of making it back with the intel and/or loot in one piece.

9 comments:

I use simular tactics when playing, however I go the Halfling rout in my LL games. The Halfling can tank with the best of them, but the initiative and ranged bonus are ideal for situations where you need to hold the enemy off till help arrives, and if things look to hot stealth at least gives you a chance. Halfling as a class gets a bad rap, but I think it's because people are playing them wrong.